Why is my life in danger if I want to make out in a public space?
When you live in India, you learn to turn a blind eye to a whole lot of the bullshit that goes around. Because if you didn't, you'd be constantly running circles around bored police officers, trying to get them to register FIRs and you'd never get any work done.
You learn to ignore double parkers, lane cutters, public defecators, pavement squatters, men who insist on painting the town red with their irrepressible paan ki peek... This is just when you're out.
If you live in a crowded area of a city, where houses are dangerously piled on top of one another, held together by little engineering and lots of prayers, you learn to ignore wife/ sister/ daughter/ mother beaters, chronic drunkards, men who insist on brushing their teeth in the balconies in holey, cotton vests stretched to transparency over bellies the size of barrels, fights between neighbours that are so filled with masala, Bigg Boss' scriptwriters could learn some plot points from them, sex sounds that the thin walls of such constructions have no hope of containing.
If ignoring stuff was an Olympic sport, our medal tally would make Piers Morgan eat dung. Premium shudh-desi cow dung, at that. It is the one sport for which our government trains us, exhaustively, from the time we start comprehending the f**ked up world we live in, to the time we kick the can.
But there's one thing our iron constitutions can't seem to stomach: love. More specifically, a woman who has the temerity to be in it. There is something deeply upsetting about a woman who believes she is perfectly within her rights to express love. How dare she feel so entitled? How dare she believe she has a choice in the matter of how to conduct herself in public?
| Everything, right from a stubborn bra strap to a friendly smile at an unknown man, could be considered an invitation. (Photo: AP) |
It unsettles us, the idea of a woman who thinks nothing of walking with her man, holding hands. Or embracing in the park. God forbid if we see her steal a kiss when she thinks no one is looking.
It’s happened to me so many times. A spontaneous expression of love can never be just that. It must be twisted and mangled, construed as a culture-destroying, shameless manifestation of lust.
Someone will always be looking, ready to titter like a cretin and take a photo, violation of a person’s right over themselves be damned.It’s like you’ve signed away any claims on your body, once they’ve had a look.
A woman who refuses to co-opt her agency is a thorn in people's side, an aberration that must be swiftly corrected so that order can be restored in the world.
And so we find ingenious ways to police her, with the help of jaw-droppingly moronic and threadbare arguments to justify the shaming.
There are two phrases every Indian girl is tired of hearing. It makes our heads hurt and ears bleed: "Acche ghar ki ladkiyan" and "Uss type ki ladki".
There is a laundry list of things a woman must do to prove that she is an "accche ghar ki ladki", whereas "uss type ki ladki" is always asking for IT.
IT = Unsolicited advice, comments, catcalls, groping, insults, shaming, physical intimidation, online and offline harassment, danger to life... There's a whole buffet to choose from, with every dish liberally garnished with rotting, algae-green male privilege and entitlement.
I am one of those "uss type ki ladkis". My closest friends are all, too. It’s not that we aren’t aware, keenly, that we’re one f**ked up date away from ending up in a ditch somewhere, raped, possibly even gang-raped, but we refuse to let that fear rule every move of ours.
It is the reason why, after Pink released, my social media newsfeeds were filled with women talking about how shaken they were and how the movie made them weep uncontrollably. Because deep down, we know that there is really no "them" and "us"; if a man wants to brand you a slut, he’ll find a way.
It is the reason we’re collectively enraged when cases like 2012 gang-rape incident surface. I’ve had countless friends who have refused to take action against their molesters, because they all know there’s really no point; it’s going to be their "loose" characters that will end up becoming the topic of conversations and ridicule.
Everything, right from a stubborn bra strap to a friendly smile at an unknown man, could be considered an invitation. A popped button, or one that's been left open as a matter of choice, is a character certificate that travels far and wide.
As far as the men are considered, when an "uss type ki ladki" trips and falls on a man, she obviously wanted him to put her dick in her. And if a woman is allowing a man the liberty to touch her while the others can see, it clearly means she's handing out an all-access season pass to the onlookers.
There are those that will shake their heads sagely and say that moral policing is necessary for the preservation of our pristine culture; to keep us from turning into a voyeuristic culture like the West.
I call that bullshit.
Our problem with PDA (Public Display of Affection) is that it threatens a man's control on the world he's come to believe as his, first. Policing, and punishing, women for it is nothing but one more way to puncture her will, make her feel like the lesser gender.
And for those whose delicate sensibilities are hurt by a couple playing tonsil hockey within their line of sight, do what you do when you see a man whip out his tool in broad daylight and thread any available surface with his wetness: make a face, mumble something incoherent and get on with your day.
Also read: [Photo essay] Why Bombay's Bandstand is notoriously charming at low tide